Information for UKBookWorld booksellers:  Increasing your book sales with email hyperlinks


Improve your book sales by using hyperlinks in your emails

Do you want to increase the number of books you sell without incurring any costs whatsoever?

Do this by using hyperlinks in your everyday email system to attract customers to view specific selections of books from your own stock on UKBookWorld.

What's a hyperlink?
    A hyperlink (clickable link) is a piece of text within an email which contains a link to a URL (a webpage address). For example, a URL such as http://www.oldbooknews.com.

    The clickable hyperlink text needn't be the same as the URL to which the user will be sent. The URL itself needn't be mentioned, i.e. visible, in the email text; the grey panel below contains a signature with a hyperlink but without obvious mention of the website's URL.


More effective uses than simple webpage links
    Hyperlinks can be far more useful and effective than sending viewers to a simple website. They can be used to point your customers directly towards actual selections of books from your own stock on UKBookWorld as in the example below:



Why should I start using hyperlinks in my emails?
    Because you'll sell far books if you do than if you don't.

    Simply listing your books on a website, whether UKBookWorld or anywhere else, and trusting that sufficient customers will notice your particular titles amongst millions of others isn't going to bring anywhere near as many sales as you have the potential to achieve.

    It's a matter of statistics. The more you can do to attract people to see your books on their screens, without them being hidden in the middle of thousands of books from other booksellers, the more you'll sell.

    So it's up to you to increase the number of people who actually get to see your books. With UKBookWorld you can do this by using hyperlinks.


How do I do this?

Basic principles of making a hyperlink
    Whatever type of email software you use - Outlook Express or Eudora say - the basic principle is the same.

    You decide on the actual words within your overall text in your email that you want the reader to be able to click on to go your required URL (website or webpage address). In Jeffrey's example in the grey panel above, his clickable words were a small number of books on furniture.

    You then use your email software to make those specific words into a clickable hyperlink by highlighting those words and adding in the required URL behind the scenes so that it isn't displayed on screen but so that the software knows where to send readers when they click on the hyperlink.

    If you're using Outlook Express, first check on the Format button that you are making emails in 'Rich Text (html)'. If so, write your email, highlight the words you want the reader to click on and go to Insert ... Hyperlink. A box will open where you add in the URL of the website or webpage you want the user to go to, in this case the correct URL for a selection from your books on UKBookWorld. The blue panels below show you how to make the necessary URLs for various selections.

    Your own software may differ from the above. If so, search for Hyperlinks in your email software's Help file and follow the instructions.

    Finally, check that any hyperlink you set up works correctly by sending yourself the email containing the link and then clicking on the link when it arrives.

How to make the URLs for your hyperlinks

This first part, with blue panels, shows how to make the URLs for your hyperlinks; the second part, with green panels, suggests how amd where to use hyperlinks.

IMPORTANT: In all URLs in the panels below note that DLR_ID, s_i_keywords and s_i_author have underscores separating the letters. You must type these underscores as shown, not leave a blank space.

Make a URL for a selection by Keyword:
    Assuming you've provided keywords when cataloguing your books (read my Provide Lots of Different Keywords report if you haven't) then the URL for any subject-area within your stock is:


      http://ukbookworld.com/cgi-bin/search.pl?s_i_DLR_ID=xxxx&s_i_keywords=yyyy


    where xxxx is your UKBookWorld sign-in userid and yyyy is any chosen keyword you have provided in your database "keywords" field. For example ...



    Simply typing the whole of any URL (e.g. the second line above) in the text of an email will make it clickable by your customer. You don't need to make a hyperlink if you type it in full as the recipient's email software will automatically recognise it as being a clickable link if they haven't set their email software to read plain text only.

    However, if you'd rather not display a complete URL as text in your emails, thinking it's too long and clumsy, make the words over 200 military books (or any other words you want) a hyperlink, linking behind the scenes to the same URL shown in the panel above. However, before deciding whether to use the log or short version, see Further points to consider towards the end of this report.

    The hyperlink below in an email would do exactly the same thing as the full text version above.



    If you want to use a keyword with two words such as 'natural history' put a plus sign between the words as in ...



    Again, the two links in the panel above do precisely the same thing as each other. It's up to you which you prefer. Again, before deciding whether to use the log or short version, see Further points to consider towards the end of this report.

Make a URL for a selection by Author:
    You can also point your customers towards your books by individual authors. The URL (or link address) then becomes, using your own userid in place of stern,



    As with the URL for keywords, if you want to use two names for the author, use both names in the URL separated with a plus sign + (... author=Churchill+Winston in the above URL)

Make the URL for a single title Reference Number:

Make the URL to your personal webpage at UKBookWorld:


Where to use links in your emails

Once you've learned how to make email links, the next thing is to decide how and where to use them.

In essence there are two main places. Firstly, in a standard end-of-email signature, so that every email you send out, on no matter what subject or for what reason, contains a potential money-making link; and, secondly, in emails where the main purpose of the email is to tell the recipient that the link exists.

In your email signature:
    Firstly, make sure that every email you send out has a descriptive signature with a clickable link direct to your books, and your books alone, on UKBookWorld. This means designing a signature which is sufficiently inviting to make recipients of your emails want to click on the link.

    How do you do this? Well, for a start, there's not much point simply saying as many booksellers do ...


      Joe Bloggs
      See my books on UKBookWorld



    Why is this useless? Three reasons:

    There's no clickable link to help them go anywhere; on top of that you're mentioning a basic website listing everybody's books, not just yours; and finally, few readers are going to be attracted by an invitation which merely says "See my books". Why should they? You haven't told them what type of books you're able to offer them.

    So, provide a clickable link; make it point to just your books, either a selection or all of them; and give the readers a clue as to the sort of books they can find there. In short, give your readers some reason for wanting to go there and click on the link.



    The above link points readers towards that bookseller's personal webpage at UKBookWorld.
In general text within an email or regular newsletter
    You can always use, say, both the keywords and Reference number types of link from the blue panels further up this page, in the middle of general text in a personal email or email newsletter, to say:



    To achieve the above, the two different hyperlinks each has its own separate URL attached to it.
Further points to consider
    a.  Most of the demonstration links above lead to a small number of books (12 scarce books; 4 books on or about Churchill; 4 medical books; 1 single book on the 'Kurskoppler'), whilst two of the links led to more substantial selections (37 natural history books; 200 military books).

    Which type of link - whether to a large selection or just to a few - is likely to be more effective depends largely upon the type of book you sell. Experiment and work out what's best for you.

    b.  As suggested earlier, the wording of any link can make an enormous difference to the number of people who respond by visiting your books. 12 scarce books you're unlikely to have known existed is a far more inviting link than See my books at UKBookWorld.

    Think creatively - what would persuade you to click on a hyperlink? Copy writing is an art. If you get stuck for ideas maybe try reading a few tips on How to Write Effective Headlines.

    c.  In any clickable links, you need to decide whether you want to use the full, perhaps lengthy, URL as complete text in your email or the much shorter hyperlink option where the URL is hidden.

    The full text version is often very long but is certain to be read and clickable by everybody; there's always a small proportion of your readers (maybe 1% or 2%) who won't be able to click on the short version as they'll have disabled hyperlinks on their email system. They'll see the words Click here to see our aviation books or whatever clickable words you've used but the clickable link won't work for them.


Summary: 5 steps to increase your book sales

Follow the steps below and you'll certainly increase your internet book sales.
  • 1. Making hyperlinks (clickable links) in emails is easy and very effective. If you don't know how to do it, search for Hyperlinks in your email software's Help file and follow the simple instructions, modifying the URL links set out in the blue panels at the top of this report to point to selections from your own books on UKBookWorld. Check that any email link you set up works correctly by sending yourself the email containing the link and then clicking on the link when it arrives.

  • 2. Never send out a business email without providing a full business signature at the end with your trading name, an inviting clickable link to some of your books, and - preferably - your contact details. Emails are free to send out - every single email is an opportunity for you to promote your books in some way.

  • 3. Always give your readers some sort of idea of what type of books can be found by clicking on any hyperlink you provide. Never say something as uninformative and uninviting as "See our stock at ...". Make your books sound interesting - the better you do this, the more readers will click on your link and the more books you'll sell.

  • 4. Change your default signature regularly to suit your changing stock or the intended recipients. Your email software will allow you to set up different default signatures so you don't have to continually re-type your signature. Learn how to use that feature. Changing your links and the books mentioned in your signature will give the impression you always have something new to offer.

  • 5. Set up a system for sending regular emails (an email newsletter perhaps) to known or potential customers containing links to individual selections or items within your stock maybe on the same sort of lines as the text in the last main green box above. The more you can personalise what you say, and the links you provide, to the known requirements or interests of the recipients of your emails the better.

    • Finally, is there anything you think I should add to this report on the use of hyperlinks either to improve understanding or improve the advice? If so, .

    © 2008 Michael Cole: UKBookWorld.com: cole@clique.co.uk